ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the development of the attachment circuitry in the brain and looks at the neural damage of being a child in a family of domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse. It discusses how this can have an impact on affect regulation and the development of shame. The differences between secure and insecure attachment processes are described, as are the predominant attachment styles: secure, avoidant preoccupied, ambivalent and disorganised. It highlights how this neural damage in childhood has consequences in adolescent and adult behaviour, and the process of compensatory narcissism. It concludes with a discussion of repetition compulsion, a ubiquitous process in offending history. In the case study, the client reviews the cognitive processes that accounted for previous inappropriate behaviour, as he starts to learn to identify and label his emotions.
